Thursday, September 4, 2008

Finally—A Bit o' th' Play!

King Lear. Dir. Peter Brook. Perf. Orson Welles, Natasha Parry, Margaret Phillips, Beatrice Straight, and Alan Badel. 1953. DVD. Passport, 2006.I felt a certain obligation to provide part of Welles' King Lear after giving you the short introduction, the Greyhound commercial, and the long introduction. It is a pretty straightforward production. The resonant voice of Welles is the most striking feature of it. Oh, and the hat. Welles and his hats. In his 1948 Macbeth, he looks like The Klingon Statue of Liberty. Five years later, not much hat progress has been made. Now it seems to be a combination of Béla Lugosi, Saint Nick, and a Standard Grounded Outlet Plug.

But the voice . . . it's worth it for the voice.

Links: The Film at IMDB. Note: IMDB lists Andrew McCullough as the director, but the introduction mentions Peter Brook. I'll need to investigate this further, but I don't want to mislead anyone in the meantime.

Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

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Bardfilmis normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilmis a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:

KJ is a professor of English and Literature at a small Christian liberal arts college. In addition to courses entitled “Shakespeare” and “Introduction to Shakespeare,” he teaches a course called “Shakespeare and Film.” Recently, he developed a course titled “Modern Shakespearean Fiction.” Shakespeare is also integrated into nearly all his other courses, including courses on the Literature of Food and the Literature of Humor. Additionally, he is the author of Bardfilm: The Shakespeare and Film Microblog. But you may have known that already.